The ability to extract particle beam bunches from a ring accelerator in arbitrary order can greatly extend an accelerator's capabilities and applications. A prototype solid-state kicker pulser capable of generating asynchronous bursts of 50 kV pulses has been designed and tested into a 50{Omega} load. The pulser features fast rise and fall times and is capable of generating an arbitrary pattern of pulses with a maximum burst frequency exceeding 5 MHz If required, the pulse-width of each pulse in the burst is independently adjustable. This kicker modulator uses multiple solid-state modules stacked in an inductive-adder configuration where the energy is switched into each section of the adder by a parallel array of MOSFETs. Test data, capabilities, and limitations of the prototype pulser are described.

In this paper we present an occlusion culling method that uses hardware-based depth queries on oriented bounding boxes to cull unseen geometric primitives efficiently. An out-of-core design enables this method to interactively display data sets that are too large to fit into main memory. During a preprocessing phase, a spatial subdivision (such as an octree or BSP tree) of a given data set is constructed where, for each node, an oriented bounding box containing mesh primitives is computed using principal component analysis (PCA). At runtime, the tree indicated by the spatial subdivision is traversed in front-to-back order, and only nodes that are determined to be visible, based on a hardware accelerated depth query, are rendered.

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The Image Content Engine (ICE) project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) extracts, stores and allows queries of image content on multiple levels. ICE is designed for multiple application domains. The domain explored in this work is aerial and satellite surveillance imagery. The highest level of semantic information used in ICE is graph based. After objects are detected and classified, they are grouped based in their interrelations. The graph representing a locally related set of objects is called a 'graphlet'. Graphlets are interconnected into a larger graph which covers an entire set of images. Queries based on graph properties are notoriously difficult due the inherent complexity of the graph isomorphism and sub-graph isomorphism problems. ICE exploits limitations in graph and query structure and uses a set of auxiliary data structures to quickly process a useful set of graph based queries. These queries could not be processed using semantically lower level (tile and object based) queries.

High voltage, solid state, inductive adder, pulse generators have found increasing application as fast kicker pulse modulators for charged particle beams. The solid state, inductive adder, pulse generator is similar in operation to the linear induction accelerator. The main difference is that the solid state, adder couples energy by transformer action from multiple primaries to a voltage summing stalk, instead of an electron beam. Ideally, the inductive adder produces a rectangular voltage pulse at the load. In reality, there is usually some voltage variation at the load due to droop on primary circuit storage capacitors, or, temporal variations in the load impedance. Power MOSFET circuits have been developed to provide analog modulation of the output voltage amplitude of a solid state, inductive adder, pulse generator. The modulation is achieved by including MOSFET based, variable subtraction circuits in the multiple primary stack. The subtraction circuits can be used to compensate for voltage droop, or, to tailor the output pulse amplitude to provide a desired effect in the load. Power MOSFET subtraction circuits have been developed to modulate short, temporal (60-400 ns), voltage and current pulses. MOSFET devices have been tested up to 20 amps and 800 Volts with a band pass …

The dynamic fracture of ductile metals is known to occur through the nucleation and growth of microscopic voids. As the voids grow, the surrounding metal is plastically deformed to accommodate the change in void volume. In order to gain better insight into void growth, gas gun recovery experiments were used to study incipient spallation fracture in light metals (Al, Cu, V). In addition to in-situ free surface velocity wave-profiles, the recovered samples were first analyzed using 3D X-ray tomography and then sectioned for 2D microscopy. The void size and spatial distribution were determined directly from the X-ray tomography. The single crystal samples show a bimodal distribution of small voids with large (50-100 micron) well separated voids. The plastically damaged region surrounding the large voids is quantified using optical and electron backscattering microscopy. Microhardness measurements indicate this region to be harder than the surrounding metal. Concurrently, a molecular dynamics model of void nucleation and growth at high strain-rate was developed. The model is consistent with experimental observations, e.g. voids nucleate at the weakest points in the metal such as inclusions and grain boundary junctions. The nature of void growth in a single crystal is sensitive to the crystal structure with initially …

Statistical methods are required in groundwater monitoring programs to determine if a RCRA-regulated unit affects groundwater quality beneath a site. This report presents the results of the statistical analysis of groundwater monitoring data acquired at B Pond and the 300 Area process trenches during a 2-year trial test period.

A major field experiment, Joint URBAN 2003 (JU2003), was conducted in Oklahoma City in July 2003 to collect meteorological and tracer data sets for evaluating dispersion models in urban areas. The Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency were the primary sponsors of JU2003. Investigators from five Department of Energy national laboratories, several other government agencies, universities, private companies, and international agencies conducted the experiment. Observations to characterize the meteorology in and around the urban area complemented the observation of the dispersion of SF6, an inert tracer gas. Over one hundred threedimensional sonic anemometers were deployed in and around the urban area to monitor wind speed, direction, and turbulence fluxes during releases of SF6. Sonic deployment locations included a profile of eight sonic anemometers mounted on a crane less than 1 km north of the central business district (CBD). Using data from these and other sonic anemometers deployed in the urban area, we can quantify the effect of the urban area on atmospheric turbulence and compare results seen in OKC to those in other urban areas to assess the parameters typically used in parameterizations of urban turbulence.

Nickel based Alloy 22 (NO6022) is extensively used in aggressive industrial applications, especially due to its resistance to localized corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in high chloride environments. The purpose of this work was to characterize the anodic behavior of Alloy 22 in oxalic acid solution and to compare its behavior to sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions. Standard electrochemical tests such as polarization resistance and cyclic polarization were used. Results show that the corrosion rate of Alloy 22 in oxalic acid solutions increased rapidly as the temperature and the acid concentration increased. Extrapolation studies show that even at a concentration of 10{sup -4}M oxalic acid, the corrosion rate of Alloy 22 would be higher in oxalic acid than in 1 M NaCl solution. Alloy 22 was not susceptible to localized corrosion in oxalic acid solutions. Cyclic polarization tests in 1 M NaCl showed that Alloy 22 was susceptible to crevice corrosion at 90 C but was not susceptible at 60 C.

This statement was given by Jerri-Anne Garl the director of the Office of Strategic Environmental Analysis before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment Transportation Infrastructure Committee of the United States House of Representatives.

A new approach for solving the 3D MHD equations in a strongly magnetized toroidal plasma is presented which uses high-order 2D finite elements with C1 continuity. The vector fields use a physics-based decomposition. An efficient implicit time advance separates the velocity and field advance. ITAPS (SCOREC) adaptivity software and TOPS solvers are used.

Aneuploidy, the most common chromosomal abnormality at birth and the main ascertained cause of pregnancy loss in humans, originates primarily from chromosome segregation errors during oogenesis. Here we report that heterozygosity for a mutation in the mitotic checkpoint kinase gene, Bub1, induces aneuploidy in female germ cells of mice, and that the effect increases with advancing maternal age. Analysis of Bub1 heterozygous oocytes showed that aneuploidy occurred primarily during the first meiotic division and involved premature sister chromatid separation. Furthermore, aneuploidy was inherited in zygotes and resulted in the loss of embryos after implantation. The incidence of aneuploidy in zygotes was sufficient to explain the reduced litter size in matings with Bub1 heterozygous females. No effects were seen in germ cells from heterozygous males. These findings show that Bub1 dysfunction is linked to inherited aneuploidy in female germ cells and may contribute to the maternal age-related increase in aneuploidy and pregnancy loss.

U.S. efforts to promote the international expansion of nuclear energy through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) will result in a dramatic expansion of nuclear fuel cycle facilities in the United States. New demonstration facilities, such as the Advanced Fuel Cycle Facility (AFCF), the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR), and the Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center (CFTC) will use advanced nuclear and chemical process technologies that must incorporate increased proliferation resistance to enhance nuclear safeguards. The ASA-100 Project, “Advanced Safeguards Approaches for New Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities,” commissioned by the NA-243 Office of NNSA, has been tasked with reviewing and developing advanced safeguards approaches for these demonstration facilities. Because one goal of GNEP is developing and sharing proliferation-resistant nuclear technology and services with partner nations, the safeguards approaches considered are consistent with international safeguards as currently implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This first report reviews possible safeguards approaches for the new fuel reprocessing processes to be deployed at the AFCF and CFTC facilities. Similar analyses addressing the ABR and transuranic (TRU) fuel fabrication lines at AFCF and CFTC will be presented in subsequent reports.

The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) waste management strategy revolves around specific treatment of individual or groups of separated waste streams. A goal for the separations processes is to efficiently manage the waste to be dispositioned as high level radioactive waste. The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) baseline technology for immobilization of the lanthanide (Ln) and transition metal fission product (TM) wastes is vitrification into a borosilicate glass. A current interest is to evaluate the feasibility of vitrifying combined waste streams to most cost effectively immobilize the wastes resulting from aqueous fuel reprocessing. Studies showed that high waste loadings are achievable for the Ln only (Option 1) stream. Waste loadings in excess of 60 wt % (on a calcined oxide basis) were demonstrated via a lanthanide borosilicate (LaBS) glass. The resulting glasses had excellent relative durability as determined by the Product Consistency Test (PCT). For a combined Ln and TM waste stream glass (Option 2), noble metal solubility was found to limit waste loading. However, the measured PCT normalized elemental releases for this glass were at least an order of magnitude below that of Environmental Assessment (EA) glass. Current efforts to evaluate the feasibility of vitrifying combined Ln, TM, alkali …

The authors present Sigma, a Web-rich application which provides user-friendly access in processing and plotting of the evaluated and experimental nuclear reaction data stored in the ENDF-6 and EXFOR formats. The main interface includes browsing using a periodic table and a directory tree, basic and advanced search capabilities, interactive plots of cross sections, angular distributions and spectra, comparisons between evaluated and experimental data, computations between different cross section sets. Interactive energy-angle, neutron cross section uncertainties plots and visualization of covariance matrices are under development. Sigma is publicly available at the National Nuclear Data Center website at www.nndc.bnl.gov/sigma.

We report on design studies for a seeded FEL light source that is responsive to the scientific needs of the future. The FEL process increases radiation flux by several orders of magnitude above existing incoherent sources, and offers the additional enhancements attainable by optical manipulations of the electron beam: control of the temporal duration and bandwidth of the coherent output, reduced gain length in the FEL, utilization of harmonics to attain shorter wavelengths, and precise synchronization of the x-ray pulse with seed laser systems. We describe an FEL facility concept based on a high repetition rate RF photocathode gun, that would allow simultaneous operation of multiple independent FEL's, each producing high average brightness, tunable over the VUV-soft x-ray range, and each with individual performance characteristics determined by the configuration of the FEL. SASE, enhanced-SASE (ESASE), seeded, harmonic generation, and other configurations making use of optical manipulations of the electron beam may be employed, providing a wide range of photon beam properties to meet varied user demands.

This article examines the impact of retail electricity rate design on the economic value of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems, focusing on commercial customers in California. Using 15-min interval building load and PV production data from a sample of 24 actual commercial PV installations, we compare the value of the bill savings across 20 commercial-customer retail electricity rates currently offered in the state. Across all combinations of customers and rates, we find that the annual bill savings from PV, per kWh generated, ranges from $0.05 to $0.24/kWh. This sizable range in rate-reduction value reflects differences in rate structures, revenue requirements, the size of the PV system relative to building load, and customer load shape. The most significant rate design issue for the value of commercial PV is found to be the percentage of total utility bills recovered through demand charges, though a variety of other factors are also found to be of importance. The value of net metering is found to be substantial, but only when energy from commercial PV systems represents a sizable portion of annual customer load. Though the analysis presented here is specific to California, our general results demonstrate the fundamental importance of retail rate design for the …

Distinct maxima and minima in the neutron total cross section uncertainties were observed in our large scale covariance calculations using a spherical optical potential. In this contribution we investigate the physical origin of this oscillating structure. Specifically, we analyze the case of neutron reactions on {sup 56}Fe, for which total cross section uncertainties are characterized by the presence of five distinct minima at 0.1, 1.1, 5, 25, and 70 MeV. To investigate their origin, we calculated total cross sections by perturbing the real volume depth V{sub v} by its expected uncertainty {+-}{Delta}V{sub v}. Inspecting the effect of this perturbation on the partial wave cross sections we found that the first minimum (at 0.1 MeV) is exclusively due to the contribution of the s-wave. On the other hand, the same analysis at 1.1 MeV showed that the minimum is the result of the interplay between s-, p-, and d-waves; namely the change in the s-wave happens to be counterbalanced by changes in the p- and d-waves. Similar considerations can be extended for the third minimum, although it can be also explained in terms of the Ramsauer effect as well as the other ones (at 25 and 70 MeV). We discuss the …

We study the evolution and saturation of the gluondistribution function in the quark-gluon plasma as probed by apropagating parton and its effect on the computation of jet quenching ortransport parameter $\hat q $. For thermal partons, the saturation scale$Q2_s$ is found to be proportional to the Debye screening mass $\mu_D2$.For hard probes, evolution at small $x=Q2_s/6ET$ leads to jet energydependence of hat q. We study this dependence for both a conformal gaugetheory in weak and strong coupling limit and for (pure gluon) QCD. Theenergy dependence can be used to extract the shear viscosity $\eta$ ofthe medium since $\eta$ can be related to the transport parameter forthermal partons in a transport description. We also derive upper boundson the transport parameter for both energetic and thermal partons. Thelater leads to a lower bound on shear viscosity-to-entropy density ratiowhich is consistent with the conjectured lower bound $\eta/s\geq 1/4\pi$.Implications on the study of jet quenching at RHIC and LHC and the bulkproperties of the dense matter are discussed.

In the 'Atlas of Neutron Resonances', special care was expended to ensure that the resonance parameter information reproduces the various measured thermal cross sections, as well as the infinite dilute resonance integrals for Z = 1-100. In contrast, the uncertainties of the recommended quantities do not match those generated from the uncertainties of the resonance parameters. To address this problem, the present study was initiated to achieve consistency for 15 actinides and 21 structural and coolant moderator materials. This is realized by assigning uncertainties to the parameters of the negative-energy resonances and changing, if necessary, significantly the uncertainties of the low-lying positive-energy resonances. The influence of correlations between parameters on the derived uncertainties is examined and discussed.

The innovative Combustion Chemical Vapor Deposition (CCVD) process is a non-vacuum technique that is being investigated to enable next generation products in several application areas including high-temperature superconductors (HTS). In combination with the Rolling Assisted Biaxially Textured Substrate (RABiTS) technology, the CCVD process has significant promise to provide low-cost, high-quality lengths of YBCO coated conductor. Over 100 meter lengths of both Ni and Ni-W (3 at. Wt.%) substrates with a surface roughness of 12-18 nm were produced. The CCVD technology has been used to deposit both buffer layer coatings as well as YBCO superconducting layers. Buffer layer architecture of strontium titanate (SrTiO{sub 3}) and ceria (CeO{sub 2}) have been deposited by CCVD on textured nickel substrates and optimized to appropriate thicknesses and microstructures to provide templates for growing PLD YBCO with a J{sub c} of 1.1 MA/cm{sup 2} at 77 K and self-field. The CCVD buffer layers have been scaled to meter plus lengths with good epitaxial uniformity along the length. A short sample cut from one of the lengths enabled high critical current density PLD YBCO. Films of CCVD YBCO superconductors have been grown on single crystal substrates with critical current densities over 1 MA/cm{sup 2}. In addition, superconducting …

The nuclear reaction code EMPIRE has been extended to provide evaluation capabilities for neutron cross section covariances in the thermal, resolved resonance, unresolved resonance and fast neutron regions. The Atlas of Neutron Resonances by Mughabghab is used as a primary source of information on uncertainties at low energies. Care is taken to ensure consistency among the resonance parameter uncertainties and those for thermal cross sections. The resulting resonance parameter covariances are formatted in the ENDF-6 File 32. In the fast neutron range our methodology is based on model calculations with the code EMPIRE combined with experimental data through several available approaches. The model-based covariances can be obtained using deterministic (Kalman) or stochastic (Monte Carlo) propagation of model parameter uncertainties. We show that these two procedures yield comparable results. The Kalman filter and/or the generalized least square fitting procedures are employed to incorporate experimental information. We compare the two approaches analyzing results for the major reaction channels on {sup 89}Y. We also discuss a long-standing issue of unreasonably low uncertainties and link it to the rigidity of the model.

Design and testing of the United States Navy’s next generation air particle detector (NGAPD) is presently underway. The NGAPD is intended for use in nuclear applications for the United States Navy and is being designed to detect airborne Co-60 with a reduction in false alarms and improved ease of use. Features being developed include gamma compensation, low maintenance, commercial off-the-shelf electronics, and spectrum simulation for quality assurance and functional testing applications. By supplying a spectrum simulator, the radon stripping algorithm can be running when a simulated anthropogenic source spectrum (e.g., from Co-60 or transuranics) is superimposed on the radon progeny spectrum. This will allow alarm levels to be tested when the air flow is running and the radon stripping algorithm is providing the instrument response output. Modern units evaluate source spectra with the air flow off and the radon spectrum absent thereby not testing the true system performance which comes out of the radon stripping algorithm. Testing results of the preliminary prototype show promise along with computer simulations of source spectra. Primary testing results taken to date include gamma compensation, thermal insults, vibration and spectrum simulation.

The three year plan for this project is to develop novel theories and advanced simulation methods leading to a systematic understanding of turbulent mixing. A primary focus is the comparison of simulation models (both Direct Numerical Simulation and subgrid averaged models) to experiments. The comprehension and reduction of experimental and simulation data are central goals of this proposal. We will model 2D and 3D perturbations of planar interfaces. We will compare these tests with models derived from averaged equations (our own and those of others). As a second focus, we will develop physics based subgrid simulation models of diffusion across an interface, with physical but no numerical mass diffusion. We will conduct analytic studies of mix, in support of these objectives. Advanced issues, including multiple layers and reshock, will be considered.